MLARTC_FM.part 1.qxp

often a vague concept, most traditional martial arts prescribe methods of cultivating and directing this subtle energy for highe ...

jujitsu. Martial artists learn to concentrate qi in the lower dantian (a spot in the lower abdomen about three inches below the ...

Knights Knightand related words (whose underlying senses are “boy” and thence “male servant”) have been used in English since sh ...

crossbow, or harquebus. Thus, the essence of knightly warfare remained close combat in full armor, either on horse or on foot. T ...

confined geographically to what may be called Great Francia—the Frank- ish empire and its successor states—and after about 900 w ...

tury, when the benefice began to evolve into the different form of support contemporaries came to call by names derived from the ...

From the mid-tenth to the beginning of the twelfth centuries, the polit- ical sphere was dominated by the further devolution of ...

vided with support in the form of benefices or protofiefs in the form of manorial land with limited rights over peasant tenants. ...

tus of caballarius/miles. Between about 1070 and 1140, princes like the duke of Normandy adopted seals for authenticating docume ...

adopt those hereditary shield designs called (heraldic) arms that later be- came the chief insignia of noble status. These emble ...

1120, the eldest sons of most noblemen of northern France and its colonies destined for a lay career were trained in this way an ...

hope of being knighted themselves, and thus these titles remained socially ambiguous until the end of the protoclassic phase. In ...

expected to serve the state not only as warriors, but as officers of the civil administration. In the strictly military sphere, ...

acquire dominions and fiefs had been made hereditary within the nobil- ity—though knighthood itself could not be inherited. Inde ...

First, of course, were the military virtues of courage, prowess, and loyalty to one’s lord (which the knight still needed in his ...

which time the tournament had probably become the principal locus for the new chivalric ideology and mythology. By that time, bo ...

knight’s personal-lineal arms, and the latter might also be displayed in some fashion on his surcoat, which was now usually brig ...

their own troop and fought under the banner of a banneret. Simple knights bachelor wore the same gold spurs as bannerets, but di ...

(Oakeshott Type XIV, 1275–1340) and finally a flattened-diamond section that made it more suitable for piercing mail exposed in ...

Germany were probably four or five times as great and never got much higher. The two ranks of knight and fighting squire—collect ...